Quub is taking a less frivolous approach to the status updates popularized by Facebook and Twitter. While Twitter asks users "What are you doing?" the actual messages veer into jokes, complaints, and other random thoughts. Quub, however, really is focused on telling people what you're doing.
One way the Irvine, Calif., company does this is by dividing the updates into the past and present -- and now, the future. Tweets on Twitter may still be amusing or thought-provoking a day later, but the relevance of real status updates (like, "I'm at home writing an article about Quub") tends to fade pretty quickly. And people often have a good idea what their future status will be, too. I already know that I'm going to be in a meeting at the VentureBeat office at 4pm today, so why should I have to wait until that time to enter that as my status, or to let my friends know I'm going to be busy? Quub's new "future" tab means I can enter that information now, either manually or by importing it from my Google Calendar.
I suspect it will be tough for Quub to compete against all the other ways people can let others know what they're doing. At the same time, nothing I've tried has solved the problem perfectly -- and it is a problem, as I've discovered whenever I try to figure out what other VentureBeat writers are up to.
The company is self-funded so far, and while chief executive George Ruan won't reveal any details about the business plan, he did say, "Rather than selling you ads, we want to actually add value to people's real-world life."